Eerie Glow-in-the-dark Roads Replace Streetlights in Netherlands

In an effort to save the massive amount of energy standard streetlights consume, and to present drivers with more information on the road, a Dutch company has transformed a highway in the Netherlands into an eerie glow-in-

A couple of years ago, Dan Roosegaarde said he was sitting in his car in the Netherlands and realized that millions are spent on roads, but no one seems to care how they look or act. Then, while speaking to the BBC last year, Roosegaarde noted that the government is shutting down streetlights late at night in order to conserve energy and save money. Roosegaarde felt it was strange than we spend billions of dollars on designing and developing cars, but the things on which they’re used aren’t involved in that budget or process. So, his company — Studio Roosegaarde — teamed up with Heijmans, a Dutch civil engineering firm, to create a paint that can glow brightly enough in the dark — and under outdoor conditions — in order to light the way for drivers.

The team developed a photo-luminescent powder that, when mixed with road paint, can glow in the dark for up to 10 hours after charging up from the daytime sunlight. The paint was placed on a 0.3-mile stretch of highway N329, about 62 miles southeast of Amsterdam in the city of Oss. Studio Roosegaarde also aimed to add glowing weather symbols that would activate when the symbol’s corresponding weather conditions took place; for example, snowflake glyphs would appear on the road to indicate that the road is slippery and caution is advised. However, for now, only the glowing street lines have been implemented.

The Sunday Telegraph reported that, back in 2011, England’s Highway Agency shut off a significant amount of the country’s streetlights overnight in order to meet a carbon emissions goal. The mass turn-off ended up saving the agency about $668,000 (or £400,000). Another of the country’s councils estimated that setting one-third of England’s streetlights to either turn off during a certain period of time, or allowing them to be dimmed, would save around $1,337,000 (or £800,000) per year.

Anyone who had their own room in middle school knows from the staggering amount of glowing stars they pasted onto their ceiling that glow-in-the-dark fixtures don’t illuminate their surroundings. They light up themselves, but nothing around it. However, Roosegaarde said the team managed to get the paint to glow so bright that it seems radioactive — definitely a better level of brightness than the glowing stars you stuck to your ceiling fan before your first sleepover.

The team wants to take the glowing paint further, but so far they have not received new contracts. The paint has not yet been thoroughly tested by the rigors of time, so perhaps we’ll begin to see eerily glowing roads popping up around the world once the paint has shown to last through weather and time.

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